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Original Entry

Help the Internet, Help the Hungry

Still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer Version 6? If so, please read on.

Internet Explorer 6 is now just over eight years old and if you are still among those who use it (or worse, an older version), the sad truth is that you are WAY behind the times.  But you are not alone; a significant portion of the Internet community still uses this antiquated browser, probably for no better reason than it came with their machine or their copy of Windows and they haven’t bothered to do anything about it.  Not sure if you’re running IE6?  Chances are, if you’ve got a menu bar (you know, File Edit View…) you’ve got IE6.  Just to be sure, you can select About from the Help menu (use Alt-H to open the help menu if you can’t see the menu bar) and look at the version number.  If it starts with anything less than 7, you’re hurting the Internet.

Why, might you ask?  I’ll give you an answer if you want to hear it (if not, skip this paragraph)  There are many reasons, but I’ll focus on two: one for me and one for you.  The one for me and other web developers such as myself is standards compliance.  Web pages are displayed using (mostly) the HTML and CSS languages, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) maintains the standards that those languages employ to describe web pages.  IE6 doesn’t really follow these standards, using its own proprietary interpretations of HTML and CSS.  This was OK for a while when IE6 had most of the browser market share; web developers were able to simply figure out how to make their page look the way they wanted to in IE6 and call it good.  Today, Firefox and other browsers take up a significant share of the market.  These browsers are much more standards compliant and thus easy to write web pages for; they behave (mostly) as expected.  Problem is, so many people still use IE6, developers (such as myself) have to either write two of every page (one for IE6 and one for standards-compliant browsers) or spend days figuring out how to write a page that looks decent in both.  So, the longer IE6 remains in the wild in any significant number, the longer we web developers have to deal with it.  Which means we make more compromises (simpler pages) or produce less content.  Which means this is really about YOU.  Speaking of you, the other reason you should upgrade is that IE6 is dog slow compared to modern browsers.  Upgrade and your surfing experience will be better.  Simple as that.

OK, so IE6 sucks.  Microsoft even knows this and has produced two better browsers since with increasing levels of standards-compliance (IE7 and IE8, respectively).  Problem is, many people continue to stick with IE6 because they haven’t felt the need to upgrade.  Well, Microsoft is now providing an incentive:  if you upgrade to IE8, Microsoft will donate 8 meals (get it? 8!) to Feeding America.  Interested?  Here’s the link:

http://www.browserforthebetter.com/

Posted by: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) in News and Tech News on September 6, 2009 at 3:33 PM